Planning a College
Degree Program
to Meet Specific
Career Objectives

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Thursday, January 6, 2005

In today's highly competitive employment market, many adults in quest of a bachelor's degree find it beneficial to structure a program that addresses general knowledge and skills as well as specific knowledge and skills that are job-related. This individualized concentration option, often a key to career advancement, is made available to adult students by
Charter Oak State College
, a public college in the
Connecticut state system of higher education
. When you are admitted to Charter Oak, and your transfer credits have been evaluated, you will work with an experienced academic counselor to plan the remainder of a degree completion program designed to meet your specific educational goals. The process allows you to clarify your career and academic objectives and to determine the courses required to complete your degree. Your Charter Oak counselor will help you determine whether to pursue a specific concentration such as Business, Child Studies, Criminal Justice or History, or to employ an individualized studies approach in which you may combine such academic areas as Business and Psychology or Information Technology and Management. Some students choose to use less common combinations. For example, one individual who had begun studying architecture early in her academic program, and whose architectural design interest had transitioned to that of historic restoration, logically combined her earlier architecture courses with history and business courses. Another student, employed by a healthcare organization that provides pathologyservices, incorporated biology and chemistry courses, along with courses in the areas of industrial safety and environmental issues, into his individualized curriculum.

Once you've made a decision about the concentration you'll pursue in Charter Oak's "degrees without boundaries" program, you can complete courses for that concentration and general education requirements in a variety of ways. You may choose to take courses, for transfer credit, from any accredited college or university or from several such institutions, simultaneously. Other credit-earning options include Charter Oak distance learning or contract learning courses, standardized exams, and preparation of a portfolio reflecting workplace learning that parallels what would have been learned in the college classroom. More information about Charter Oak State College and its adult degreeprograms is available on the college's Web site -
www.charteroak.edu
or by calling (860) 832-3855.

Merle W. Harris
, Ed.D., is president of Charter Oak State College, a distance learning college for adults. Charter Oak is a public college in the Connecticut State System of Higher Education.